


Deptford Blues

by Lexigent



Category: 16th Century CE RPF, Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-01 07:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2764658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent





	Deptford Blues

**Author's Note:**

  * For [samskeyti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samskeyti/gifts).



It's not every day you get called to the South Bank because there's a body in an archaeological site. But that was what happened, and of course I was the lucky sod who got to do it. I got the call from Stephanopoulos early on a Wednesday and drove down from the Folly.

When I got to the scene and had taken a look, I didn't really understand why Stephanopouos had called me in. The Folly does the weird stuff.  
"So what's weird about this one?" It didn't even look like a crime to me. An elderly lady - one of the volunteers - who hadn't made it home after her shift and who was found face down in the puddles on top of the ruins of the Rose Theatre.

The thing about the Rose Theatre is, it's the most completely preserved authentic Elizabethan theatre. It is also currently buried under about a hundred tonnes of water and sand because no one wants to spend money restoring the genuine article when there's the rebuilt Globe just down the road - a _working_ theatre that, and this is the real miracle, isn't reliant on government subsidies. You do the math on that one. 

Anyway, the Rose these days is a couple of red outlines on top of some rather large puddles with a tiny stage at the near end where they sometimes put on fringe performances. I've never seen one but there were posters on the door that advertised Christopher Marlowe's _The Massacre at Paris_ would start running the next week.

"Nothing," Stephanopoulos said and I stared at her. "If there's nothing weird then..."  
"The weird stuff is _ever there_ , she said and pointed to one of the beams at the far end of the puddle. I followed her finger with my gaze.

Over by the beams, obviously clearly visible for everyone, was a white bloke in Elizabethan costume. Except it wasn't a costume, it was his normal clothes, because he was a ghost. The slight translucence of his skin might have been a clue, but it was the fact that his feet were three inches above the ground that really tipped me off.

"Right then," I said and looked back at Stephanopoulos. "Am I supposed to get him out of here, or just put him in jeans and a t-shirt?"

She gave me a look that instantly made me regret what I'd said. "Right then," I said and walked towards the chap in the frilly shirt. The objective here was to get him out of the area before anyone else arrived and started asking questions.

"Christopher Marley. Kit, if you please." He bowed from the hip, moving one foot forward towards me. I let out a breath.  
"Oh, you have to be kidding me."  
"Alright then, it's Marlowe, if you prefer. You modern sorts, no appreciation of variation any more." "Right, Mr. Marlowe..." I looked around me. "Would you be so kind as to make yourself invisible while there are actual living people around?" He made a show of wringing his hands. "Would that I could, Mister..." "Grant, PC Grant. Peter." I extended a hand, and his went straight through it, because of course. "Would that I could, Mr Grant, but as one of the protectors of my beloved theatre has, as my friend Will would have said, shuffled off this mortal coil, I am, as it were, obliged to keep vigil." Right. "Can you keep vigil elsewhere?" He smiled. There was something catlike in his features. Well, the nickname had to come from somewhere, I suppose. "That is not strictly in my protocol. However, it is a thing of possibility." "In that case, would you accompany me?" He bowed again. "Certainly." "And stay out of direct sunlight." I wasn't strictly supposed to take people to the Folly, but I couldn't very well leave him where he was, either. I got him out under the watchful eyes of Stephanopoulos and drove back to the Folly. I'm sure Kit could have made the distance in a flash anyway, seeing as how he was a ghost, but I didn't suppose he knew where he was going.

Molly cocked her head and raised her eyebrows at us. Well, mostly at Kit.  
"It's fine, Molly, he's a friend, sort of," I said and made my way past her and to the kitchen.

Kit seemed to lag behind so I turned around to see him lift Molly's hand to his lips. Molly giggled and blushed - or, I suppose, would have, if she wasn't translucent - and glid away.  
"This is all very well, but some of us need food, you know." I got some bread and cheese out of the fridge and sat in the dingy kitchen for a little while munching away.  
"Nothing much I can do for you today, and I'm going to bed. You can talk to the master of the house, if you're feeling up to it."  
I got up and went in search of Nightingale. We found him in the library. He was reading, the book turning the pages by itself. Magic. It's got so many practical, everyday uses.  
He turned around when he heard me, but whatever greeting he had for me died on his lips.  
"Good evening, Master Nightingale, and the very best compliments of the season to you."  
"And the same to you, Master Marley. It is such a pleasure, I thought we'd lost you a long time ago, have a seat."

Part of me wanted to ask who this person was and what he'd done with the real Nightingale, part of me wanted to just be a fly on the wall and watch these two. Both were cut off when Nightingale asked me to fetch some tea for himself and "Master Marley". Molly was nowhere to be found, so I had to get the tea, whether I liked it or not. You guess which one. When I got back to them with two steaming mugs, they were already deep in conversation and the table in between them might as well not have been there. Nightingale took the mugs from my tray and put them in front of himself and Kit. For me, he only had a look. The one that said "leave me alone with him, surely you have things to do."  
Right. I suppressed the urge to tell them to get a room, but that was mostly because they'd got one already.  
"Mister Marley, I'm sure Mister Nightingale can show you to your room later. I'm knackered, I'm going to bed."  
There was a flash of gratitude in Nightingale's eyes. "Thank you, Peter. Yes, I'm sure I can show our guest where he is sleeping tonight."  
I left them to it and made for the coach house. There are, as I keep discovering, things a wizard apprentice doesn't want to think about.

***

Nightingale was conspicuous by his absence when I went down to meet Lesley for breakfast and morning practice. We started on it by ourselves. The rate Lesley was picking up magic, she could tutor me anyway. While we were throwing fireballs at targets, I brought her up to speed on the current inhabitants of the Folly.

"That Christopher Marlowe?"  
"Yeah," I said. "Bloke who hung around Shakespeare."  
That was as far as my knowledge went, anyhow. I'd seen _Shakespeare in Love_ at the cinema when it came out and all I got from that was that he drank in the same pub as Shakespeare and that Shakespeare nicked all his ideas. As of yesterday, I also knew that Rupert Everett looked nothing like him though. But then, I suppose, the filmmakers didn't have the dubious benefit of having his ghost around on set.

We'd been at practice for an hour when Nightingale made an appearance. He was very apologetic about it all and mumbled something about Master Marley being so interesting to talk to and losing track of time and whatnot. I gave Lesley a quick look to see what she made of it. For my own part, the thought went something like "how precisely does that one work, and do we actually want to know?"

The thing that worried me was, I kind of did want to know.   
The next time I saw Kit was over lunch. He was somehow less translucent and actually ate things without them falling to the floor straightaway. I had half wondered about those mugs of tea the night before. It was obvious that something had happened to alter his state, but it wasn't something I could very well ask Nightingale about. I looked at him while I ate and you had to admit, he was kind of good-looking, in a sandy sort of way. And he did have very nice eyes.

***

I'm not entirely sure when the Folly had become a haven for supernatural strays, but if I was going to be living at the ghost version of the Battersea Cat Rescue, I might as well get used to it. It's not like we didn't have the space. Though Kit made his best efforts to take up any amount of space given to him. Even when I didn't see him around, his presence was unmistakable by the traces he'd left. If Zach had still been around, they could have had a competition over who could make the greater amount of mess in the shorter period of time.

Given the amount of clothes Kit left strewn all over everywhere, I shouldn't have been surprised to find him in the kitchen in nothing but a pair of boxers on Sunday morning. Still was though, but chalk that up to my uncaffeinated state. He also seemed to have solidified, by which I mean he looked less translucent; more like a normal person and less like a ghost.

I don't do words well before the first coffee, but even after that, I couldn't find a way to say _well, you're looking well_ without it coming out wrong in some way.  
"Settling in, then?" I said instead.  
Kit took a drag on his cigarette. God knew where he got that from, or why he thought that that was an okay thing to do over a breakfast table. I was going to have words with Nightingale about all this, once the investigation was over and we'd have to decide what to do with him.

"Perfectly fine, Peter, thank you very much."

I didn't like to ask if it was being around the Folly or the fact that he was shagging my boss that had given him a second shot at physicality. I made eggs and bacon and didn't speak to him. To his face. It helped, if only a little.

Two weeks later, when the original case was closed, but there were no signs Kit was leaving, I decided words were needed after all. If we were going to live in the same building, some things would have to change.

Molly, for some reason, refused to pick up Kit's things, and once they touched the floor they seemed to exist in a mysterious state that meant he couldn't pick them up either, so it was up to me to make sure people who needed their feet to touch ground to move could actually enter the house. After folding clothes, throwing away takeaway containers, and wiping up the floor around them for around 45 minutes, what I really needed was to find a naked Kit float ten inches above the floor of the firing range, casually dropping a half-eaten apple on said floor.

"Can you just..."  
I didn't finish the sentence. He gave me a glance and started to glide off, and that's when I decided he'd have to have his feet on the ground before anything else happened. The only way to achieve that was to forcibly put them there, so I did. I found surprisingly little resistance, so I almost felt a little guilty when I pinned him against the wall.

Except what I did find instead of resistance worried me even more. He gave me a look that stopped any yelling I'd been about to inflict on him dead in its tracks and went straight to my gut. Against the wall seemed as good a place as any, and he was naked anyway.

"Right, so we got that out of our systems, then," I said afterwards. Kit looked inordinately pleased with himself. I couldn't blame him, but it wasn't like this was going to repeat itself and I wasn't going to lose any sleep over it.

"So... is Master Marley just going to stay at the Folly?" I asked Nightingale in the car on the next appropriate occasion. His hesitation before answering told me all I needed to know.

"Just, you know. Make sure you have plans for what happens when you get past the honeymoon stage."  
Nightingale stepped on the brakes abruptly and I was grateful to whoever had come up with seatbelts back in the day.  
"Yeah, alright, that was uncalled for," I said when I had my breath back. Nightingale leaned back in his seat and groaned.  
"When?"  
"Last night on the firing range."a  
"Oh God." He turned to me, his expression full of concern.  
"It's aright, guv. My life is already pretty non-conventional, shall we say, so it's not like he's going to make a massive difference. I just - if he's moving in with you, I like to know."  
Nightingale nodded slowly. "Peter, I never anticipated."  
He let the rest of the sentence dangle so I finished it for him. 

Life at the Folly was about to get a good deal more entertaining, but I found, as we drove on, that as long as the bastard left my Playstation in peace, I didn't really mind all that much.


End file.
